you.”

[29]

Here the Bibliomaniac took a small paper from his pocket and read the following lines:

“THE HUNGRY BIBLIOMANIAC

“If only you would cut your books

As often as your butter,

When people ask you what’s inside

You wouldn’t sit and sputter.

The reading that hath made you full,

The reading that doth chain you,

Is not from books, or woman’s looks,

But fresh from off the menu.”

“What do you think of that?” asked the Bibliomaniac, with a chuckle, as he folded up his valentine and stowed it away in his pocket once more.

“I think I can spot the sender,” said the[30] Idiot, fixing his eyes sternly upon the Poet. “It takes genius to get up a rhyme like ‘men’ and ‘chain you,’ and I know of only one man at this board or at any other who is equal to the task.”

[30]

“If you mean me,” retorted the Poet, flushing, “you are mightily mistaken. I wouldn’t waste a rhyme like that on a personal valentine when I could tack it on to the end of a sonnet and go out and sell it for two-fifty.”

“Then you didn’t do it, eh?” demanded the Idiot.

“No. Did you?” asked the Poet, with his eyes twinkling.

“Sir,” said the Idiot, “if I had done it, would I have had the unblushing effrontery to say, as I just now did say, that its author was a genius?”

“Well, we’re square, anyhow,” said 

 Prev. P 15/100 next